


Vulnerability In Extremis

by flamingsword



Series: Vulnerability [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Extremis!Pepper, F/F, Identity Issues, Natasha has emotions, Red Room, Relationship Problems, Women Being Awesome, intimacy issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamingsword/pseuds/flamingsword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the life of Natasha Romanoff, master spy, this is a busy week for emotional revelations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vulnerability In Extremis

[ that night ]

April 21st, 2014 - 7:50 p.m., Washington, D.C. 

Natasha pulls out of the parking level of Pepper’s hotel at twice the legal limit. She is driving because right now she needs to feel in control of something, and none of her preferred sparring partners are on the right continent. 

Cap and Wilson are in Europe chasing sightings of a metal-handed man, and taking out Hydra bases on the way. Clint got a postcard off to her secret postal box saying that he managed to get out when his SHIELD cover got burned, but that it might take him another month to get back to the U.S. from South America since he couldn’t trust any military transport not to arrest him. They’re all still considered material witnesses in an ongoing investigation, subject to detainment until further notice. She grips the wheel tighter and accelerates.

Natasha thinks this edgy feeling must be what going crazy feels like.

Darya was the crazy one; had hated what they were so much she’d tried to dig out her tracker with a carving knife. So why is Natasha today finding out that Yelena Belova, fellow graduate of the Red Room, has had reconstructive surgery to look like her? 

Nothing about this day is under control.

  


* * *

  


[ before ] 

Phil had talked about her when he met Potts during the Iron Monger incident. Redheads weren’t usually his type, but though he seemed more than impressed with Tony Stark's relentlessly competent PA, nothing romantic came of the attraction.

Before Natasha started dating her, back when he was alive, Pepper and Phil had a standing coffee date for even numbered Tuesdays, mostly to complain about their mutual affection for infuriatingly disorganized people. Natasha supposed she could see the parallels. Stark was a disaster of a human being and Clint was Clint. 

When Phil had called her to tell her that Clint had been compromised with that distant worry in his voice, it was like watching her own hand reach up to slap her. 

Losing Phil had felt like the other side of that coin, watching the unthinkable happen.

  


* * *

  
[ earlier that day ]

April 21st, 2014 - 6:45 a.m., Washington, D.C. 

Her phone wakes her.

“Good morning, Agent Romanoff. The time is six forty-five a.m. The weather for today is expected to be fair with temperatures between fifty-eight and seventy degrees. No warrants or subpoenas have been issued for you within the last twelve hours on any available networks. I have found seventeen further documents from the SHIELD leaked files that mention you but do not contain your signature. Current count for all flagged names and search terms is at one hundred and twenty four documents. Shall I send them to this StarkPhone for review?”

“Yes, please.” Natasha stands up and stretches before pulling back the velvet curtains to let light in. “JARVIS, is Pepper still getting in from New York this morning?” 

“Indeed. Her flight is scheduled to arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport at ten fourteen a.m. local time. Arrival time at the hotel, including thirty seven minutes travel time in mid-day traffic, should be eleven twenty-one a.m.. I have taken the liberty of flagging a file on your phone which I believe may present difficulty to you in the future without the resources of SHIELD available to mitigate the situation.” 

Natasha does not know how intelligence arose out of Stark’s household management and scheduling software, but she cannot doubt that it did. If JARVIS says there’s a problem, she believes him. The file, when she pulls it up, is dated less than a month ago, and is two unconfirmed hearsay reports that a spy for Department X has undergone reconstructive surgery to look like Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow. With her recent stint on CNN, she wishes them much luck of it. One of the reports names the person undergoing the surgery as Yelena Belova, Russia’s new Black Widow: able to infiltrate the networks of the old one.

With SHIELD fallen and her face splashed across the news, much of what Department X must have been planning is now a non-issue, but it still means trouble for her. As badly as she’s burned right now, if she puts the call out to her underground contacts to not trust anyone who shows up wearing her face until they’ve proven themselves to be her, she may never hear from them again. And even if she did it, that might not be enough to stop Yelena. She grits her teeth. This will require careful navigating. 

“Thank you, JARVIS. Keep me posted on new files every twelve hours.” 

Natasha starts getting ready for her day, running potential plans over in her mind to deal with the Yelena situation. It’s inconvenient to have an impostor running around with her face, but she is going to deal with this in a mature fashion. She is.

  


* * *

  
[ also that morning ]

April 21st 2014 - 7: 30 a.m., Manhattan

Breakfast with Bruce is a lovely time of Pepper’s day. Tony’s rarely awake for it, or when he is he’s passing by on his way to bed. So it’s just her and Bruce most mornings, tea and sleepy companionship. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes even about things other than Tony. 

“Is this a return to his norm, or is this a deviation from the norm?” Bruce says. 

Pepper gestures with the hand not wrapped around her mug. “Well, no, he’s not usually this bad, but in Tony logic not sleeping for more than three hours a night for the last two weeks makes _sense_. People he cares for were in danger, and now that he knows about it he can’t really help them. This is how he deals with feeling powerless. He invents something that could have solved the problem so that he’s prepared if it happens again. He’s just not good at saying any of that out loud.” 

“And when he says he’s “tickety-boo” . . . what does that _mean_? Is - is that a _word_?” Pepper laughs instead of replying. 

“How do you work out problems?” Bruce asks.

Pepper can feel the back of her neck flush as she remembers how she and Natasha worked out their recent difference of opinion. “ . . . Well, Bruce, every couple finds their own methods for working things out. Sometimes you have to experiment a little. Sometimes you have to just - to just do things without knowing how they’re going to turn out and trust that your partner will forgive you for fumbling it.”

“Ah. You’re telling Natasha today? About Extremis?” 

Pepper grimaces slightly. “I could still chicken out. Being a great big coward is always an option.” 

“But unless you tell her _soon_ , she’s going to be really hurt that you kept it from her after SHIELD was no longer a factor, and then it’ll just be easier to not tell her . . . until something bad happens and she finds out on her own in the most damaging way.” Pepper grimaces again at his words. “Aaaand I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already thought of, but just in case you needed independent confirmation, I figured I should say it.” Bruce’s self-deprecating little smirk is comfortingly familiar. 

“I just want to be something stable for her, Bruce. Hydra, losing her boss, Clint being out of the country, plus all the superpowered craziness of our lives - I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to be the boring, safe part of her life. Domestic. Homey.”

Bruce gives an exaggerated look around the space age steel kitchen, the plate glass window beside the breakfast bar looking down on Manhattan, and Pepper laughs again. 

“You know what I meant.” 

“You can cook an egg without a skillet. How is that not domestic?” Bruce asks. Pepper menaces him with her spoon in retaliation.

“What if she came into this relationship with the expectation that this was going to be uncomplicated and now I’m changing the terms of the relationship on her? That’s not fair. What if being done with SHIELD means she wants to be done with superpowers and assorted drama? Am I enough incentive to get her to stay?”

Bruce smiles his saddest smile. “She didn’t leave SHIELD, though. It collapsed around her. And if there’s not hope for you being enough, there’s no hope for any of us. I think you’re going to have to trust her.”

“I’m going to hug you now. Prepare yourself.”

“Oh. Darn.”

  


* * *

  
[ later that day ]

April 21st, 2014 - 12:15 p.m., Washington, D.C. 

They’re talking about the vice president’s trip to Ukraine and finishing an early lunch at Ambar when Pepper says into the noisy lunchroom, “Natasha ... I have something to tell you, but I think it might upset you. Is now a good time to talk about it?”

“Of course. You can always tell me anything.” 

“Please understand; I didn’t want to keep this from you. I also didn’t want to make you choose between being loyal to your job or to me.” Pepper says, and Natasha nods in reply. “Now that you’re not part of SHIELD anymore and nobody is going to want to use you against me, and you’re not put in a position to have to divulge my secrets, it’s safe for me to tell you.”

“Last year, before Killian died, he deliberately injected me with the unstable version of the Extremis nanotech virus. He wanted to coerce Tony into working on it for him. Tony didn’t want Fury to know in case he decided that I was a potential threat, not if Tony could fix it. And he did. The version in my system is stable now. Also . . . Tony didn’t kill Killian . . . I did. But we couldn’t explain that without explaining how I had super-strength, so we hid it. That’s why I was so . . . upset about Killian and the kidnapping. But I’m germ and injury proof now, even if I can’t really talk to my therapist about the real reason I have nightmares. There are some other things about it that are more technical, but those are the big things that I thought I had to keep from you.”

“God,” Pepper said, with a shaky smile. “It’s such a relief to not be keeping anything important from you. So, I’m going to give you a few minutes to digest that before I press you for your reaction to my keeping something this big from you for our _entire relationship so far!_ Uh. Feel free to be upset with me; that would be fair.” 

Pepper raised a hand and caught the waiter’s attention to signal for the check. 

“Pepper, considering what I do for a living, it would be the height of hypocrisy to be upset with you for keeping secrets. I want you to do whatever you need to, to protect yourself. That being said, I am going to use this as leverage the next time we have an argument about my job. Now let’s go meet my coworker at her tailor.”

  


* * *

  
[ before ]

 

Natasha had known there was an operative from one of the multinational orgs tailing her for three days. She’d managed to lose him twice, but he’d picked her trail back up faster than she was comfortable with. On the third day, just outside the market district of Budapest, she’d finally managed to catch a glimpse of his reflection in a shop window. Blond brush cut, muscular shoulders, inexpertly applied makeup hiding a recently broken nose. He had looked American, but his posture hadn’t said military. Possibly a mercenary. 

He had met her eye in the reflection, and had shrugged and rolled his eyes at her, as though inviting her to share in something humorous. 

A moment later he was ignoring her as though it hadn’t happened. 

A day later they were fending off half the Hungarian mafia and two ex-KGB hitmen in a burning warehouse together. 

That was the first time she met Clint.

  


* * *

  
[ later that day ]

April 21st, 2014 - 12:57 p.m., Washington, D.C.

They get to the little shop just before they’re supposed to meet Sharon Carter. The sign outside just says “TAILOR” with no business name listed. Natasha approves. 

The tailor’s plate glass window is covered in rice paper and the inside is private and brightly lit. They’re greeted by a heavy set Vietnamese woman with a friendly face. Natasha hands over the three suits she needs altered to conceal weapons and Pepper’s blazer that needs altered to fit. Pepper makes a joke about having lost weight from worrying this week, and Natasha can feel her pulse rising when she hears the bell over the door chime. 

Agent Carter comes in right on time. Natasha can tell she’s still rattled, visible to the trained eye. And while Pepper can’t tell anything is amiss, Agent 13 is a spy. 

Over the next full minute Carter keeps narrowing her eyes suspiciously until finally giving the query sign and the sign for danger with the hand that’s on her purse. Natasha allows herself to look embarrassed for the shortest possible moment and then goes back to her usual bland smile. With the hand that Potts can’t see she signals the all clear. Carter blinks her surprise. 

Natasha has spent so long pretending to never have bad days that Carter’s surprise shouldn’t bother her, but it does. She knows she’s being unfair, and it’s one more irritant in a day that is becoming a minefield of bothersome feelings. 

She stands up on the stool and listens to Pepper charm her former coworker while the tailor marks her jacket with chalk. With Sharon distracting Pepper, she has a minute to get her head back in the game. 

She’s fine. 

She can do this. 

The tailor has her fast-draw a few times and asks if she wants the hem weighted or plastic reinforced to flip out of the way when she needs to go for the gun. Natasha decides on both. 

Carter comes up behind her in the mirror, smirking at the .22 under Natasha's arm. “I always figured you were a better caliber of person than I was, Romanoff.” Agent 13 opens her own jacket revealing her .38.

“It can be hard to gauge these things. Your accuracy will improve with experience.” 

Pepper smiles and rolls her eyes behind them. 

“Uh oh, looks like we _bore_ your girlfriend.” 

Pepper laughs at their puns and plays along, saying, “You’re both fired.”

“Oh, good. Because drinking with my boss would be awkward. Maria Hill and I are getting drinks at the Tabard Inn, now that she works for Stark Industries and I’m with the CIA. Provisionally at least. But you two should meet up with us. Wednesday at 6 - The Tabard Inn off of Dupont Circle.”

Natasha lets Carter and Pepper be charming at one another while she changes to the next suit jacket. She is glad that the other agent is here to take the focus off of her. She has a squirming discomfort with thinking about how today would have gone otherwise.

  


* * *

  
[ later that night ]

April 22nd, 2014 - 2:24 a.m., Washington, D.C. 

Natasha turns onto her back and stares at the faint line of light over the curtains. 

Two Widows out of twenty-four girls is a seven per cent success rate. Those are still bad odds. Five living adults out of twenty-four is twenty percent, which is a little better. Maybe she’ll go break Svetlana out of prison next time she’s in North Korea, see if ‘Lana wants to retire like Elisaveta. She has no proof that Elisaveta survived the helicopter crash that took out her exfiltration team, of course, but her body was never recovered, and Red Room graduates are hard to kill. Maybe one of them did grow up to be a real girl. 

Svetlana was never well cut out to be an operative, and she should get the chance to balance her own ledger. Then again, with the fall of SHIELD, and Natasha’s cover being blown, it may be a while before she’s in that part of the world again. Maybe if she wants one of them to be a real girl so badly she should work on being that girl herself.

But being a real girl requires having real things, a real family. Is the old woman she remembers really her grandmother? Do Yelena and the other survivors remember the same old woman? Maybe there was only one grandmother to divide between the girls of the Red Room. Does that make her grandmother less hers if she also belonged to the others? Is privacy how you know something is yours? 

Natasha turns onto her other side and looks at the fall of Pepper’s hair, barely discernable in the darkness. 

Can people ever belong to one another, or do they just drift beside each other for a while like leaves in a stream? 

Yelena is not really what’s bothering her. But she’s not ready to stop hurting over what the real problem is. 

She slips out of bed without waking Pepper.

  


* * *

  
[ the next morning ]

April 22nd, 2014 - 6:22 a.m.

Natasha sneaks past the CIA watchdogs, careful to not crinkle the paper bag full of chocolate croissant and canelé. She comes in through the skylight, calling out a greeting when she lands to let Hill know that there’s company. Over the next ten minutes she tells Hill about Yelena, about her girlfriend dropping an unspecified bomb, about how she had a bad day and may have another. 

Hill raises an eyebrow at Nat. "Now that things have shaken out the way Fury thought they might, you can take your emotional issues up with the new Director." Hill gives her Coulson's number.

Natasha blinks. “Does Clint know about this?”

“I thought we’d let you be the one to break the news. Barton’s not above punching the new Director for following Fury’s order to stay dead. He was, too. Actually dead.” Natasha opens her mouth. “When you see Phil it’s really him, not an LMD or a clone. Fury used some experimental alien goo that can make people crazy to revive him.”

“Gross.”

“Now that he’s past the time frame for going crazy, he just has to worry about Barton deciding to break his nose for not coming back.” 

“Not if I get there first.”

“Nice try. You’d have done the same thing, and for the same reason - Fury asked. He saw the cracks in the structure of SHIELD a long time ago but didn’t start thinking it was systemic until Barton was able to infiltrate the helicarrier and bypass all the redundancies. That meant that doublebacks were designed into the security by someone, probably multiple someones, and the Old Man couldn’t figure out who. Coulson was insurance.”

“Why him as the new Director, what, because he could disappear? Why not you?”

“Fury needed someone incorruptible to play man on the outside against the day when exactly this happened, in case we didn’t win. Someone who would never stop fighting a losing war. Someone whose morals couldn’t be swayed by what was expedient. He needed Coulson. Tell me you’d have made a different call and I’ll tell Barton myself.”

Natasha quirks her mouth to the side instead of admitting it. 

“And before you ask, no, you couldn’t have been on the team that was with him. If the goo had compromised Coulson instead of saving him, neither you nor Barton could be trusted to put him down if it needed to be done. And Fury wasn’t going to ask it of you, even if he had been certain of you.” 

Natasha weighs that for a second. “He didn’t tell Clint. Because of me.”

“What one of you knows, the other one finds out. And Barton isn’t nearly the actress you are. His mourning had to be sincere.”

“Then I suppose I owe him that much.” 

“I can’t do much about your girlfriend, but I have some strings to pull with the KSO. I’ll look into Belova for you, see if we can get an idea how likely some kind of mistaken identity is.” Hill stands up, digging into the pastry bag. “You want coffee before you leave?”

  


* * *

  
[ one month before]

She stroked down Natasha’s side, stilling the twitching in the smaller woman’s flank. Pepper was pleased to find that she didn’t ache across her arms or shoulders, even now that Natasha’s husky voice was going hoarse from screaming at her. Maybe having her body hijacked wasn’t all downsides. 

“That must feel good; you’re flushed halfway down your chest. Would you like another finger? I’ve always had such slender hands, don’t you think, Natasha? Do you think I could fit my whole hand in here?” She slowly turned her fingers back and forth inside Natasha, teasing her with pressure close to where she wanted it. And sure enough - 

“God DAMN it, Potts. Let. Me. COME!”

“Oh, you’re going to come. You’re going to come on vacation this summer. One whole week; no spying, no emergencies.” 

Natasha started sobbing a minute later, hands gripping and releasing the headboard, but Pepper kept her strokes too tender to bring her off. “Tasha, say yes for me, my love.”

It took another ten minutes, but Pepper eventually got her to agree.

  


* * *

  
[ later the next morning ]

April 22nd, 2014 - 7:00 a.m

“Good morning Miss Potts. The time is seven a.m. and the weather is expected to to be cloudy with temperatures between sixty-two and seventy-seven degrees, with a chance of thundershowers mid-afternoon. No news bulletins relating to Stark Industries have gone out overnight. There are no articles currently in your RSS feed, and nothing in your search alert terms.” 

Pepper rolls over to check, but since JARVIS didn’t greet Natasha or continue with Natasha’s preferred wake-up information and check-ins after her own, the other woman’s phone must not be here. Sometimes Natasha wakes in the night and can’t get back to sleep; sometimes she gets text alerts that she wakes instantly to answer. Pepper asks Jarvis if there’s been any spy news recently. 

“There has been no news of particular importance since yesterday morning. A recent report was unearthed from the SHIELD files that a Russian spy named Yelena Belova has had reconstructive surgery to resemble Agent Romanoff. It is expected to become a problem.” 

Pepper remembers Natasha telling her stories about the Red Room. If this spy is the same Yelena that Natasha grew up with, then there’s more going on than just spy business. And if it were actually not a big deal, Natasha would have told her about it already. If she’s hiding it, then she feels like it's something important to hide. Hmm.

Pepper texts Natasha’s phone and tells her she’ll be in talks with defense contractors all day, but that she’s scheduling a relationship talk for tonight.

  


* * *

  
[ later the next morning ]

April 22nd, 2014 9:00 a.m., Washington D.C. 

Coulson picks up on the first ring. “Hello, Natasha.” 

“Hey, Coulson. You can relax, I’m not going to bitch at you for following orders.” 

“Oh. Good.”

“No, instead I’m going to complain to you about my girlfriend and our emotional issues.” 

“That’s ... just what I’ve always wanted. Who are you dating these days?”

“Pepper.”

“Really? Hill did not tell me that.”

“I’m glad she didn’t tell you everything. I have two solid years of Clint’s and my issues to catch you up on. Being dead does not absolve you from your promise to listen to Clint’s whining, and since I’ve been the one subjected to it, I’m going to pass it on.”

She tells Coulson about first dates, about white wine, and Swan Lake and the feeling that the choice to date Pepper was effortless. She tells him about four months of playful flirting, having someone who can read her that isn’t looking for an advantage, of how she didn’t expect to trust Pepper so completely without a lot of effort on both their parts, and how scary it was to realize that. Then Natasha tells him that Pepper kept something really big from her. How can she still trust her this much but still _feel_ so _betrayed?_

“Why didn’t you yell at me, Agent? Why did you decide that you understood what being under orders was like and that understanding was more important than taking your anger out through good old-fashioned yelling?” Phil asks, calmly. “It’s because even before each of us lied to you, you knew us. You knew we were capable of lying to you if we felt we needed to. You don’t feel betrayed about the lie. You feel betrayed that she didn’t feel she could trust you the way you trust her. For once, you’re the less defensive partner in the relationship, and you’re a little thrown. It happens.” 

“That’s not an accurate characterization. Pepper’s only been defensive about this one thing. I’m not so neurotic that I have to be the most defensive about everything at every instant.” Natasha says, nettled. 

“Speaking of unfair characterization. This has got you down, doesn’t it? You haven’t been this self-critical since that time Clint got shot in Córdoba, which was still not your fault.” 

“We agreed not to talk about that.” 

“Be that as it may. You trust Pepper because you know her well, and what you know of her says that she’s worth trusting. She could have betrayed your trust by misrepresenting herself and turning out to be someone who didn’t deserve your trust. Is that what happened?”

“... No.” Natasha sighs.

“So she messed up. Have her make it up to you like a normal girlfriend.”

“I may have slightly lied by omission about Yelena Belova. And considering the text on my phone, I’m pretty sure JARVIS ratted me out.”

“Well, maybe you’re even.”

“Maybe. If this talk doesn’t go well tonight can I distract Pepper by telling her that you’re alive?”

  


* * *

  
[ Later the next evening ]

April 22nd, 2014 - 5:55 p.m., Washington, D.C. 

Pepper has JARVIS call in an order for blini and potato vareniki to Mari Vanna, thank god for Russian delivery in the Capitol. Then she waits until Natasha shows up. Pepper has rules for major relationship discussions, and one of them is that everyone has to have eaten recently enough that blood sugar-based irritability isn’t a problem. Having comfort food for Natasha after what are likely to have been a couple of rough emotional days is just practical. 

At the end of their meal, Natasha is slowly picking at her food and trying not to look guilty. She’s strangely like Tony in this moment, Pepper decides. “Okay, I’ll start. I found out this morning that someone named Yelena had surgery to look like you and that JARVIS said it was going to be a problem. That was the Yelena you grew up with, wasn’t it?” Natasha shrugs.

“Natasha, I understand that you were raised to never show anything that could be construed as a weakness, and I don’t expect you to get over that all at once. But at the same time, my telling you about Extremis could have waited. This could have been easier on you; you didn't even have to tell me _what_ was going on. I just needed to know it was a bad time.” Pepper sighs and picks apart one of the vareniki with her fingernails. “Instead, I had to find out you weren’t alright from JARVIS. I told you something emotionally heavy when you already had something stressful on your plate - what if you had reacted really badly? What if this takes a really big toll on our relationship because I didn’t know to wait? I need to know what’s going on with you to make good decisions in our relationship, Natasha.” 

“And now I’m starting to question whether you were being honest with me when you said you weren’t upset. You seemed fine at the time, but I think we both know that you’re better at acting okay than I am at catching you in a lie. You weren’t there this morning, and you haven’t had any spy stuff going on, obviously, since you’re still here. So something is bothering you. I would like to know what’s going on.” 

Natasha puts the food on the table, slowly.

“I wasn’t that upset about Yelena. I would’ve been over it in a day and then told you about it as soon as the problem was fixed. I wasn’t keeping it from you for any particular reason, I just like to have problems solved before I talk about them, because I overcontrol myself to control my environment. You know this about me. But then you had been keeping things from me. And I didn’t have _any right_ to be upset with you about having kept a secret from me! But I was! And it was unfair! And I knew I was being unfair, but I didn’t know how to stop being upset with you, and it was making me feel crazy, so I talked to some people today to get my head screwed back on straight.”

“I’m glad SHIELD didn’t know about Extremis, but sad that you didn’t think that you could tell me. Because I would have kept it from Nick for you. As loyal to my boss as I was, for as many years, I would have put you first. But you had no way to know that, because I haven’t _told_ you any of this yet. I haven’t told you what it _means_ when I tell you stories about growing up in the Red Room. I haven’t told Clint half the stuff I’ve told you. I _trust_ you.”

“Oh, Nat. Come here.” But Natasha pulls away from her and gets up to pace the suite. 

“I trust you. I trusted you even before I knew that you were only keeping something from me so that I wouldn't have to choose. And I didn’t know _why_ I wanted to trust you more than I trust Nick Fury, but I did, and since I couldn't explain it, I couldn't rely on it. But I don’t want to be totally in control, totally disconnected any more.”

“I don't want to drift past you, Pepper. I want our lives to be connected.”

Natasha looks really surprised when Pepper starts crying. Tears apparently freak out spies. Who knew?

  


* * *

  
[ before ]

 

She had pulled her sandals and sundress back on over her panties, had gotten ready to leave the other woman’s house. The warm, brown skin of her companion that afternoon was on display on the bed, still napping. Natasha was still restless in her own skin. 

This was why she hated going on vacation. No matter how sexy the women were, even in the most beautiful places in the world, none of them were sufficient distraction from her life. 

The sex was fun, though. 

Natasha let herself out onto the front porch and started walking back toward the beach.

  


* * *

  
[ Later the next evening ]

April 22nd, 2014 - 7:20 p.m., Washington, D.C.

Pepper’s face is still blotchy from crying, she can feel it. But Natasha is kissing her back, so it must not bother her too much. 

After an age of kissing and pulling at clothes, Pepper pulls her over to the bed and straddles her. Scraping her nails over Natasha’s collarbones to free up her mouth, she says, “I want to try something. I think you’ll like it. Let me?” And Natasha nods immediately, so of course Pepper has to kiss her immediately. 

Pepper lets Extremis warm her hands up, ever so slowly, as she’s touching Natasha. “You have to tell me if it’s too much, okay? I don’t want to burn you. I just want to get you hot a little differently this time.” 

She grabs Natasha’s nipple between inhumanly warm fingers, making her gasp, and drags scorching nails down her breastbone. The first rough moan breaks from Natasha’s throat, and Pepper feels triumphant. Her other hand has been busy pulling at the tabs of Natasha's pants, and they’re quickly stripped off along with underwear. Way to be useful, super strength. 

Pepper heats her mouth up before biting and sucking at Natasha’s breasts and the edge of her ribs. She pinches hot against the bare silkiness of Natasha’s thighs and they tremble beneath her fingers before falling further open. Pepper delves the heat of her hands slowly between Natasha’s legs, rubbing firmly over the slickness gathering in the folds. She traces a finger around the clit with lazy focus until Natasha is rocking into her hand.

“Sorry about the crying earlier. I didn’t mean to worry you, but you’ve never talked about our relationship in the long term before. I was a little overwhelmed.” Pepper smiles a big, goofy smile. “It has me feeling very _generous_ right now.”

“Lucky me! Three fingers, please.” 

Pepper obliges her, sliding the fingers in roughly, and Natasha gasps for her. She focuses her attention on working Natasha toward the blazing frenzy of her orgasm. 

“You’re still not off the hook for not telling me about Yelena, but I know you’ll do better next time, because we both know there’s going to _be_ a next time for us to do better. Because we want this to last, right Natasha? You want to stay with me?” She holds her gaze as she pumps her fingers faster and Natasha is moaning and nodding her head and twisting into Pepper’s hands to get more of every sensation, beautiful like this. 

“Pepper. Pepper, please, I want ... _harder_.” 

“Are you ready, love? You want to come like this? Come for me. Oh, Tasha, come on.”

Natasha’s legs twitch and shake as she comes. The flush spreads all the way down her chest, across the marks from Pepper’s mouth. Pepper feels a very proprietary sense of satisfaction come over her. 

She’ll take her own turn in a minute. For now, she’s content to kiss her girlfriend and hold her until her satisfied shivers subside.

  


* * *

  
[ Wednesday afternoon ] 

April 23rd, 2014 - 5:50 p.m., Washington, D.C. 

Natasha wishes this car were a convertible. It would be a good afternoon for driving with the top down. Pepper is flushed from the sun pouring in the open windows, the warm wind flowing over them as they head toward meeting up for drinks with Hill and Carter. 

“So you have super strength, superior senses, a healing factor faster than Steve and Bruce, and you don’t want to do anything with it?”

“I’m not joining the Avengers.”

“So you’re a superhero, but only in bed? I can live with that.”

Pepper laughs. Natasha grips the wheel tighter and accelerates.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta numb3r5ev3n, and to trianamars and mdryly on tumblr, rens_sanctuary, havocthecat,  
> Shorti and all the various tumblr and Dreamwidth people I have talked to who bounced ideas around and helped me get a better handle on what I was doing. This would be a crappy story without y’all.
> 
>  
> 
> [ After Credits Scene ]  
> She receives a postcard one day, after Congress has stopped calling her. The postmark is from São Paulo; her secret postal drop box is on a printed label, untraceable. A drawing of Elizaveta’s face is in the writing space, one eye winking. No other text is included.


End file.
